Whenever I meet visitors to Mizpah Congregation, whether they be high school or college students preparing assignments or those considering Conversion to Judaism; whenever I address non-Jewish audiences at schools, churches or elsewhere, I rarely fail to inform my listeners that I represent just one ‘face’ of Judaism in our Chattanooga community.
I am a Reform rabbi, and Mizpah is proudly affiliated with the Union for Reform Judaism, our umbrella congregational organization. But there is also in Chattanooga a Conservative Jewish constituency, as represented by B’nai Zion Congregation, and an Orthodox community, whose representatives are the Chabad [the ‘ch’ pronounced with a back-of-throat guttural] organization – both of which are more traditional in their observance of Jewish life.
I also enjoy pointing out that, in our three movements there are more shared features than those that are differrent. Briefly stated, we are the same, only different.
For all Jews, the Torah – the Five Books of Moses – is the underpinning of our faith. Our Jewish view of the world flows from our understanding and interpretation of Torah, however diverse that may be.
We follow an identical Jewish calendar. Our lives are ordered by our respective devotion to Shabbat – the seventh day – and to our observance of the High Holy Days, festivals and other special days during which we gather in our homes and houses of worship to celebrate our Judaism, each persuasion in its own way.